QTS Realty Commences IPO at $21 A Share

Officials of QTS Realty Trust ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate their IPO.

Data center developer QTS Realty Trust launched its initial public offering this morning on the New York Stock Exchange, pricing its shares at $21 to raise $257 million. The IPO price was below the range of $27 to $30 per share the company had targeted in regulatory filings. In early trading, shares of QTS rose 6 percent to $22.66 per share.

The QTS offering will provide an indication of Wall Street's appetite for data center IPOs, and be of keen interest to other companies in the sector that have filed to go public, including IO and hosting industry consolidator Endurance International.

The QTS offering arrives as Wall Street is receptive to IPOs. There have been 159 IPOs thus far in 2013, and 110 of those companies have seen their share prices move higher after going public, according to IPO Scoop.

The offering by QTS is a key step in the company's ambitious growth strategy, which has focused on buying massive industrial facilities and adapting them for data center use. The company hopes to expand seven of its data centers across the county, investing up to $277 million to add more than 312,000 square feet of customer space in key markets over the next two years.

QTS operates 10 data centers in seven states offering 714,000 square feet of raised floor data center space and 390 megawatts of available utility power. The company, which plans to convert to a real estate investment trust (REIT), reported revenue of $84.4 million in the first half of 2013, with net income of $7.1 million and funds from operation (FFO, a key benchmark for REITs) of $26.7 million. In 2012, the company had revenues of $157.6 million and FFO of $45.2 million.